Leo Perutz: Klage um einen Toten (1939)
Obituary for the author Richard A. BermannFriends and peers around the world were shocked to learn that author Richard A. Bermann (alias Arnold Höllriegel) had died suddenly while in exile in America, just a few days after the beginning of the Second World War.
Leo Perutz: Letter to Richard A. Bermann (11 September 1939)
When Leo Perutz wrote this letter to author Richard A. Bermann (alias Arnold Höllriegel), he was unaware that his best friend, who was living in exile in America, had passed away just a few days earlier.
Leo Perutz: Letter to Richard A. Bermann (15 May 1939)
While living in exile in Palestine, Leo Perutz was unable to match the literary successes he enjoyed in Europe prior to the Nazis' ascension to power. In this letter to his friend and fellow author Richard A. Bermann, Perutz not only recounts his difficulty finding a linguistic home in exile, but also tells of the "forced" reprinting of his novel Zwischen neun und neun [Between Nine and Nine, 1918] in a Hebrew newspaper.
Leo Perutz: Mientras dan las nueve (Between Nine and Nine)
Cover of the Argentinian edition (1945)The novel Zwischen neun und neun [Between Nine and Nine] by Leo Perutz tells the equally tragicomic and suspenseful story of Stanislaus Demba. In handcuffs, he falls from a garret while fleeing from the police at nine o'clock in the morning – and survives.
Leo Perutz: Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke (Meisls Gut), Manuscript (1951)
[By Night under the Stone Bridge]Leo Perutz’s novel Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke [By Night under the Stone Bridge] was first published by the Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt in 1953. The story of its origins stretches back to the period before Perutz’ exile.
Leonard Steckel: Letter to Erwin Piscator, 1947
As the actor Leonard Steckel suggests in this letter to director Erwin Piscator, he sought to return to Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War. The actor and the director had become friends while working together at the Volksbühne theatre in Berlin.
Leonhard Frank: Letter to Hermann Kesten (1 October 1940)
In September 1940, the writer Leonhard Frank fled from Marseilles to Lisbon, whence he travelled on to the United States. Upon arrival in Portugal he still had no visa for the United States and so he wrote a worried and panic-stricken letter to Hermann Kesten in New York on 1 October 1940.
Letter from Benedikt Fred Dolbin to Arnold Schönberg (14 October 1937)
Before the newspaper illustrator Benedikt Fred Dolbin became a professional illustrator and made portraits of celebrities, he had completed an engineering degree in Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century. During his studies, Dolbin began to develop an interest in the arts, joining the “Nachtlicht” cabaret for a year as a balladeer and studying composition with Arnold Schönberg in 1908 and 1909.
Letter from Benedikt Fred Dolbin to his sister Bella Paalen (21 February 1937)
In this letter from newspaper illustrator Benedikt Fred Dolbin to his sister Bella Paalen from 21 February 1937, he speaks of his difficulties making his livelihood as an illustrator in the US. Again and again, Dolbin asked the Viennese opera singer, who had stayed in Austria, to lend him money or procure jobs for him in Austria.
Letter from Berthold Viertel to Wieland Herzfelde, 21 October 1943
When writer and director Berthold Viertel and the Malik publisher Wieland Herzfelde met one another for the first time in Berlin in the 1920s, they were both very successful in their professions. In 1939 they met again as stranded refugees in New York: Viertel had tried to establish himself as a theatre director on Broadway without success, while Herzfelde sold stamps.
